In May 2015, from their home in Bellevue, Washington, Rachel and Erin Alder* tried donor insemination for the first time. “It was surreal,” Erin recalls of her first trip to the sperm bank to pick up their purchase. “I’m driving across [Seattle’s] Floating Bridge with sperm in my passenger seat. It was like sperm is my co-pilot.” At home, Rachel and Erin would unpack the large cryotank holding a tiny vial of what they hoped would be their future child.

After meeting in 2012 and marrying in 2014, the couple was ready to expand their family. Erin, 41, had already given birth to two children during a previous marriage. She’d also survived ovarian cancer where she lost an ovary and fallopian tube. Given her age and the viability of her reproductive organs, and because she’d experienced pregnancy and childbirth twice before, the couple decided Rachel, then 33, would be inseminated.

Over the last 13 months, the Alders have immersed themselves in every aspect of the often confusing and sometimes heartbreaking world of building a family through donor insemination. It’s been not only an education in conception but also in slowing down, letting go, and working as a team.

Selecting A Donor

When the Alders first started thinking about donor insemination—the preferred term for what we used to call artificial insemination—they first considered whether they would use a known donor or an anonymous donor. They could think of only one man they would trust with such an important request. When he declined, the couple moved forward with Seattle Sperm Bank (SSB).

Most appealing to the Alders about SSB over other sperm banks they researched was its photo matching service. As a lesbian couple, Erin’s DNA, and thus her physical attributes, would naturally be excluded in the conception process. “I was able to send in photos of me when I was a kid, my brother, my family,” Erin says. “We only get to see a picture of the donor when they’re little, as a baby or toddler, but [SSB] gets to see the person as an adult. They take your pictures and give you suggestions of donors that resemble your family.”

“We understand [insemination] is a difficult process,” says Frederik Andreasson, chief financial officer of Seattle Sperm Bank, “we want to make it as easy, as transparent, and straightforward as possible.” SSB offers the same services and donor information to all its members at the same price (a three-month all-access pass is $50), unlike some sperm banks that release donor information at increasing fee levels.

With SSB, and like all sperm banks, the Alders were able to also narrow down available donors by selecting things like preferred race/ethnicity, eye color, height, and weight. They listened to audio interviews, read donor bios, and reviewed personality tests before making a final decision.

The Trials Of DIY Insemination

“We had no idea what to expect,” recalls Erin of their first experience trying to inseminate Rachel at home through the “turkey baster method.” In this method, a vial of ICI (intra-cervical insemination) specimens are drawn into a syringe then deposited into the vagina.

“We just thought, ‘Ok, here we go,’” and out came the oven mitts for handling the cryo tank the sperm had arrived in. “It was comical,” Rachel says.

The vial, similar to a sample size perfume bottle and containing 15 million or more sperm cells, had to first soak in lukewarm water for five to ten minutes to thaw the frozen sample. Rachel recalls the directions from Seattle Sperm Bank were straightforward but adds, “There’s definitely always that lingering feeling of ‘Did we just kill them all?’”

Stationed in their bedroom, Erin was responsible for drawing the sample into the syringe and depositing it into Rachel who was lying on their bed, hips propped up with pillows. “It has to be very, very slow putting it in, otherwise it’ll squirt right back out. That was another thing we learned that first time,” Rachel says. “We kinda went a little fast. You go really, really slow. It probably takes seven to ten minutes to put that tiny amount in.” After the sperm was deposited, Rachel had to stay lying down for at least the next hour.

Starting Over...

In January, after attending a fertility seminar geared towards the LGBTQ community, the Alders got serious not only about insemination, but everything surrounding the process: diet, exercise, alternative medicine, and most importantly, making use of outside help. “We’d been flying by the seat of our pants . . . and there are people that can help us do this,” Erin says.

During this seminar they learned about different insemination procedures (ICI versus IUI), different specimen types (washed versus unwashed), and overall success rates (between 8 and 16 percent per cycle). It was here they also met their midwife, Kristin Kali, L.M., C.P.M., and owner of Seattle-based MAIA Midwifery & Fertility Services. With Kali, the Alders now have a more holistic and scientific view of the donor insemination process.

“I am approaching conception from a perspective of how the body works and working with how the body works,” Kali says. “This is not just a medical issue. These are people who are becoming parents so there’s more room for counseling, for education, for those non-clinical aspects to be included within the care.”

No alcohol, no smoking, no soda, reducing dairy and sugar, eating lots of colorful fruits and vegetables, drinking lots of water, drinking fertility tea, taking fish oil and prenatal vitamins, eating high-quality proteins every few hours, going to acupuncture once a week, getting an abdominal massage once a month, exercising at least three days per week—anything Rachel can do to create an optimal environment for successful insemination, she is doing. “This is our future child,” she says. “It’s worth all the effort in the world.”

Since working with Kali, the Alders have switched from ICI (the “turkey baster method”) to IUI (intra-uterine insemination), which has a higher success rate because the sperm is placed directly into the uterus. With any insemination, however, timing is everything. “The greatest success [with IUI insemination] is when the insemination is done within twelve hours of ovulation,” Kali says. With Kali’s help, Rachel has become an expert on her body, whittling peak ovulation down from an estimate of several days to several hours. During this brief twelve-hour period, Kali comes to the Alder’s home to perform the insemination.

After two more inseminations earlier this year, Rachel is still waiting to conceive. “It’s pretty sad,” she says quietly crying. Erin adds, “We can do what we can do for our own bodies, our own mental health and physical state, to make that into tip top shape. The rest we just have to,” and her voice trails off. “It’ll happen when it’s time,” she finishes.

Weighing The Costs Of Conception

It will happen when it’s time, but a sense of urgency remains all the same. Conceiving through donor insemination isn’t cheap. Buying sperm, shipping costs, midwife and insemination fees, it all adds up. All of their expenses, except acupuncture, are out-of-pocket.

The couple estimates they’ve spent somewhere between $8,000 and $9,000. “We don’t want to wait another year [to conceive],” Erin says, “but we’re being thoughtful about the whole process.” Rachel adds, “We’ve got to do this the right way.”

The couple is taking the summer off from trying to inseminate. Rachel is working on getting her progesterone up. If her levels are up in August, they’ll work with Kali to inseminate in September.

Today, Rachel is staying tapped into her body and all the information it gives her. “My body is smarter than my mind. My mind will say: keep going, keep going, keep going. And my body is saying: slow down, you’re not ready yet.” But one thing is for sure, when the Alders do conceive, it will have been worth the wait.